Obituary: Joseph Ewan

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NO ACADEMIC subject is truly the creation of a single person, but, if George Sarton can be said, more or less, to have created the flourishing modern discipline of History of Science in the United States and elsewhere, it is hardly too much to add (as a footnote) that Joseph Ewan, who died last week at the age of 90, established the history of natural history in America as a subject of scholarship. He was himself, without question, the leading historian of American botany.

Joseph Ewan was born in Philadelphia in 1909 but grew up in Los Angeles. The surrounding countryside was then almost unspoilt and Ewan's weekend forays were the making of an excellent …